Voluntary redundancy on offer to staff at Northants County Council

Sarah Ward
Local democracy reporter

Northamptonshire County Council staff are being offered voluntary redundancy.

The authority is turning to its payroll bill to find part of the £50m-plus worth of savings needed over the next 12 months.

A total of 3,400 permanent staff are employed by the authority.

But staff in the fire service, children’s department, adult social workers and LGSS external service cannot apply to leave.

It also looks like there will be a vacancy freeze and there will be a review of agency staff use.

Leader of Northamptonshire County Council Cllr Matt Golby said: “As part of the council’s ongoing efforts to face up to its significant financial challenges we are currently exploring ways of which we can make further savings.

“As part of this managers are being asked to review whether vacancies need to be filled, review the use of agency staff and to understand what appetite there might be for voluntary redundancy.

“When we have this information we will be able to plan future service priorities in the light of the resources available to us.

“We hope these measures will be sufficient to meet our aims but if we need to make further difficult decisions we will not shy away from doing so.”

A finance report to be considered by the cabinet next week says that the ‘forecast monitoring position has changed significantly from the prior period’ and ‘in-year spending reductions will have to take place outside of a process of reductions being identified by service departments.’

Cuts to services proposed so far include the stopping of funding to 21 libraries and a reduction of the winter gritting service.

The report states: “Officers have been working with cabinet to develop a workforce reduction plan.

“Since it is proving challenging to identify further sustainable spending reductions in third party spend the only available source of readily available spending reduction is the county council’s payroll cost.